Karajan, Herbert von

Sibelius: Finlandia, Tapiola, Swan of Tuonela

“Karajan is a great master,” wrote Jean Sibelius in 1955. These spellbinding interpretations of tone poems and other shorter pieces by Sibelius date from the early 1980s, when Karajan had been conducting his music for more than 40 years. “He is a composer who cannot really be compared to anyone else,” said Karajan, who, with the magnificent Berlin Philharmonic, probes the music’s mysteries and releases its haunting and noble sonorities.